Pulling in the Welcome Mat

By Richard N. Ostling.

When Pope John Paul II takes to the road, crowds are almost always huge and the mood celebratory. The Pontiff's magical spell, however, was abruptly snapped in the Netherlands last week during his 26th foreign journey. The Dutch, with 5.6 million Roman Catholics among 14.5 million citizens, accorded John Paul a remarkably unfriendly reception. There were street riots and also barbed comments from his hosts.

More significant, however, was the dismally low attendance at event after event, as though some pervasive national ennui had set in. Said one Vatican official, after observing the paltry crowd at an Amersfoort youth rally: "I have never seen anything like that." John Paul's four-day Dutch sojourn indicated that there are indeed distinct limits to the power of his personal charisma and that his attempt to reconcile Dutch Catholics with his conservative agenda for the church has had minimal success.

During the past two decades, the Netherlands has become something of a laboratory for progressive Catholicism and a continuing source of worry to the Vatican. Liberal Catholics, including some priests, have openly espoused women's ordination, birth control, an end to mandatory clerical celibacy, approval of remarriage after divorce, sharing Communion with Protestants and acceptance of homosexuality. John Paul has distressed many of the Dutch not only by opposing such views but by installing a series of unpopular conservative bishops to enforce his policies, rejecting candidates proposed by the Dutch clergy.

The Netherlands was the first country to react to a John Paul visit with violent physical hostility. However, it was generated by a fringe assortment of anarchists, homosexuals and punk youths. Street brawls by youths in the tiny nation have become such a fixture that the Dutch hardly seem to notice them anymore. The ugliest episode began in Utrecht with protesters who had assembled under a legal permit. Several dozens of the 1,000 marchers sang, "We're going to kill, kill, kill the Pope tonight," while pelting police with rocks, bottles and smoke bombs. At one point, a bottle, cans and eggs were hurled toward the bulletproof white Popemobile.

The embarrassingly small and unenthusiastic turnouts almost seemed to amount to a nationwide boycott. Instead of the hoped-for 50,000 people at the Eindhoven airport welcome, there were 7,000. In 's Hertogenbosch, parking was provided for 80,000 cars; 8,000 people were on hand. About 50,000 worshipers, most of them elderly, clustered before the huge altar at the open-air Mass in Maastricht, in the southern Catholic heartland; 150,000 had been expected. Some commentators explained that it is difficult these days to get the Dutch to leave their homes for any public event. Nonetheless, there was no masking the planners' disappointment. Aides of the Pope said he felt "sequestered" and was dissatisfied with the way the visit was organized.

The invitation-only indoor events were filled to capacity but proved troublesome in a different way. The Pontiff was repeatedly confronted over his conservative policies. The most dramatic episode took place in Utrecht during a talk by Hedwig Wasser, a middle-aged mother of three, on behalf of the National Council of Missionary Societies. Although the Dutch hierarchy had tried to screen out dissidents who might challenge the Pope, Wasser departed from her text, which had been cleared in advance, to ask John Paul, "Are we preaching the liberating gospel in a credible way . . . if we exclude rather than make room for unmarried people living together, divorced people, homosexuals, married priests and women? . . . Developments in the church in recent times have forced many of us, because of our faith in and obedience to Christ, to be critical and disobedient toward the church." John Paul listened pensively. Afterward, he made a point of shaking Wasser's hand warmly.

At the Hague, Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers, who is Catholic, improvised on his prepared statement to tell the Pope, "In Holland, we are tolerant toward people who are different or who think differently." The clear message: You are not. "To be quite frank," Lubbers added, "simply the word Rome makes some people uneasy, if not downright suspicious."

Perhaps the Pope's most important confrontation was with the Rev. Henk Huting, chairman of the Netherlands Reformed Synod. Huting deplored the Catholic Church's ecumenical regression and blamed it on "instructions from higher authority." Read: Rome. For his part, John Paul skipped some hard-line passages in his prepared address, but the text remains the Pontiff's most forthright statement on his approach toward Protestantism. Discussion of joint Communion services is futile, he indicated, and Rome is unwilling to explore changes in the nature of the priesthood. The speech removed any remaining doubt that John Paul now foresees substantial ecumenical progress only with the Eastern Orthodox churches.

Some Protestants were irritated by the omissions, deeming the Pope less than candid. Nonetheless, the self-censorship seemed to fit John Paul's overall strategy of being as diplomatic as possible on Dutch soil and making more gestures of mollification toward his critics than is customary. Despite the disappointments on the trip, he was not defiant but uncharacteristically plaintive and conciliatory. At the youth rally in Amersfoort, he pleaded, "You must continue to tell us everything honestly. But you must also listen to our criticisms."

In another departure, during a speech in 's Hertogenbosch, John Paul defensively explained his recent appointments to the hierarchy. It was the first time a Pope has done so in public. He acknowledged the local unrest and disappointment over his February naming of conservative Bishop Johannes ter Schure, 62. "Believe me, brothers and sisters, this suffering on account of the church grieves me," said the Pontiff. But "in the final analysis, the Pope has to make the decisions."

After the tensions of the Netherlands, John Paul spent a placid day and a half in Luxembourg. He then moved on to Belgium, where the crowds lining the streets and joining the mass meetings were once again large and friendly, as they have been in so many nations. The Pope was scheduled to fly back to Rome May 21.

Was the trip to the Netherlands worth the risk? Papal advisers put the best face on things, insisting that John Paul knew all along that local conditions would make the visit difficult. Said one member of his entourage: "Everyone is happy there was no real disaster."

The trip performed one notable service: it demonstrated the weakened state of Dutch Catholicism after a generation of liberal experimentation and authoritarian Roman reaction. The dissenters who have so vexed John Paul are now graying, and younger Dutch no longer seem much interested in the church. The four days in May also delineated the frontiers of John Paul's impact. He can preach with elan to the converted. But in the Netherlands, at least, he showed little talent at persuading those who are skeptical about his inflexible papacy.

With reporting by B.J. Phillips/Utrecht and Robert Suro with the Pope